Muhammadiyah 3 Jember. Therefore, a classroom action research entitled “Improving Writing Achievement of Grade X-9 Students and Their Active
Participation Through Controlled Writing Technique at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember” was conducted. This research was done collaboratively with the English
teacher of class X-9 in order to run this research efficiently and effectively.
1.2 Research Problems
Based on the research background, the research problems of this study were formulated as follows:
1. How can the use of controlled writing technique improve the students’ writing
achievement of the grade X-9 students at SMA Muhammmadiyah 3 Jember in the 20102011academic year?
2. How can the use of controlled writing technique improve the students’ active
participation of the grade X-9 students’ at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember in the 20102011 academic year?
1.3 Research Objectives
Based on the background and the research problems, the objectives of this research were formulated as follows:
1. To improve the grade X-9 students’ writing achievement by using controlled
writing technique at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember in the 20102011 academic year
2. To improve the grade X-9 students’ active participation in writing class by
using controlled writing technique at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember in the 20102011academic year
1.4 Operational Definitions of the Terms
This classroom action research conducted in the second semester of 20102011 academic year for grade X-9 students at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember. In this
1.5.1 The English Teacher
The finding of this research could hopefully be used by the English teacher as an input to create a creative controlled writing excercises that are appropriate with the
students’ need and as a consideration to use controlled writing an alternative technique to improve the students’ writing skill.
1.5.2 The Students of Grade X-9
It was expected that the use of controlled writing technique can improve the students’ mastery in grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, organization, and content as
used to write descriptive paragraph.
1.5.3 The Future Researchers
The results of this research hopefully would be useful for other researchers as information or reference to do a further research dealing with other writing
techniques or the same technique but with different types of controlled writing technique. For example the other researchers can explore the other types of controlled
writing technique and create the more creative tasks in order to make the students to be more interested in writing.
3. Good writing reflects the writer’s ability to write clearly and unambigously. It
means that the writer should afford to give information to readers clearly. The readers should not have to struggle to understand what is written.
4. Good writing reflects the writer’s ability to criticize the first draft and refise it.
It means that in good writing, the writer should afford to criticize his or her lacks in writing and then he or she afford to refise it.
5. Good writing reflects the writer’s pride in manuscript. It means that poor
grammar or typographical errors destroy the writer credibility. So, the writer should concern with his or her punctuation, spelling, capitalization, grammar,
or other conventions in writing.
Besides those characteristics of good writing, students also have to concern with some steps of a writing procces. To produce a good writing, the process of
writing must be done well. According to Harmer 2004:4 writing process is the stages a writer goes through in order to produce something in its final written form. In
other words, there are some steps needed in the writing process. Furthermore, Harmer 2004:5 suggests four main elements in the writing process; they are planning,
drafting, editing reflecting and revising, and writing final version. In planning, a writer notes directly any ideas that occur in his or her mind after
thinking about the object. He or she does not think whether the ideas relevant or irrelevant to the object and just find as many ideas as possible. After the gathering of
ideas is considered enough, he or she starts to sort out the irrelevant ideas and rewrites the relevant ideas. It is used in finding a topic sentence and supporting
sentences. Next, the writer can write the ideas through draft. Then, the writer can revise his or her writing. Revising is important to do because it can make the writer
finds and corrects his or her errors in writing. The last steps is writing final version. After revising the writing, the writer can write the final result of his or her writing. It
can be inferred that writing is a complex because it needs some steps to get a good writing in order to make the readers understand well with the information given.
Besides that the writer should also concern to the aspects of writing such as grammar, vocabulary, organisation, content, and the use of mechanics.
subject-verb agreement, so he decides to compose controlled writing that make the students focus on this point. Therefore, the teachers usually use the technique to make
the teaching activity effective to the students’ writing skill. In sum, writing is a difficult skill to be learned because it is an activity of
expressing our thought, feeling, and ideas in the written form by considering the aspects of writing and it needs some steps to make a good writing in order to make
the reader understand well with the information given. Therefore, we should teach writing step by step, from simple to complex or from controlled to free expression.
2.2 The Teaching of Writing at SMA Based on the 2006 Institutional Curriculum
The teaching of writing at SMA based on the 2006 Institutional Curriculum, including for grade X students, has a set of teaching writing activities. Those
activities are stated as follows: 1.
Making an advertisement of certain product 2.
Writing an announcement about meeting in the school 3.
Writing a composition on recount form 4.
Writing a composition on procedure form 5.
Writing a personal letter 6.
Writing a composition on descriptive form 7.
Writing a composition on narrative form 8.
Writing a composition on news item form From those listed activities, this research only focused on descriptive writing
especially writing a descriptive paragraph because it was taught to the tenth grade students. Besides, descriptive paragraph is also used in other kinds of paragraph, such
as narrative, procedure, recount, or comparison Wong, 1999:373. The next subchapters will describe about paragraph writing especially descriptive paragraph
writing in detail.
2.3.1. Descriptive Paragraph Writing
Stanley et al.1992:152 point out that description present the appearance of things that occupy space, whether they are objects, people, buildings, or cities. In
addition, Wong 1999:373 defines a descriptive paragraph as a paragraph which describes a person, a place, or an object so precisely that the reader sees the item
clearly in his or her imagination. In other words, a descriptive paragraph should contain the detail of the object being described clearly. To describe an object clearly
in writing, we need to create the senses of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and touching so that it comes alive for the reader. From the explanation above, it can be
concluded that a descriptive paragraph is a group of sentences, which contains relevant information that is used to describe a person, a place, or an object so
precisely that the reader can imagine the item clearly. Furthermore, Nordquist 2009 points out that a descriptive paragraph entails
two features namely; identification which identifies the phenomenon to be described, and description which describes the phenomenon in parts, qualities, orand
characteristics. The following is an example of descriptive paragraph. Jakarta is the capital city of Indonesia. It is centrally
located within the country on the northwest coast of Java Island at the mouth of the Ciliwung river. Jakarta dominates
Indonesian’s administrative, economy, cultural activities, and a major commercial and transportation within Asia-with a
population of about 9 million, Jakarta has more people than any other cities in Indonesia.The climate is hot and humid year-round.
Rainfall occurs throughout the year, although it is the heaviest from November to May. To average annual precipitation in
Jakarta is 1,790 mm. The city lies on a flat, low plain and is prone to flooding during periods of heavy rainfall.
Adopted from Grace and Sudarwati, 2007:160
The first sentence of the paragraph is the identification of Jakarta which is called a topic sentence, and the second until the last sentences are the description of
Jakartacalled as supporting sentences.Furthermore, according to the national
2.4 Techniques in Teaching Writing
Byrne 1984:23 states that various approaches to teaching writing have been developed and the variety of techniques and procedures in terms of the materials have
been generated, but the most significant of these terms is teaching the various difficulties involved in writing gradually from controlled to free expression.
Supporting this idea, Raimes 1983:93 proposes two techniques in teaching writing, namely controlled and free writing. Controlled writing technique is a technique used
by the teacher for teaching writing in which a great deal of the content or form is supplied to his students. On the other hand, free writing technique is the opposite of
controlled writing technique where the students generate, organize, and express their ideas in their own sentences.
Since this research deals with the application of controlled writing technique in the students’ descriptive paragraph writing, the following subchapters will discuss
about the details of controlled writing technique.
2.5 Controlled Writing Technique
